Birthday Wishes

Everything was perfect, right down to the little details. The cake was frosted with pink buttercream and decorated with little edible butterflies in every colour you could think of. Ribbons were tied in neat bows across the chairs. Streamers hung from the ceiling and a big banner was draped across the windows proclaiming in 'Happy Birthday Zoe' in bold letters.

All her friends had made it. They smiled and laughed as she told a joke. She hummed along to the music as they danced around the room. Her mum watched from the doorway with only the slightest tinge of sadness to her smile, so slight that Zoe wouldn't notice. She was having too much fun.

Zoe's friends were all the same age as her, little boys and girls from all over. They had all come over to celebrate her birthday. Her best friend was a boy named Josh. He always called Zoe’s mum Mrs Chester, she thought it was formal for a boy of his age. He also had bright blue hair, he said he was born with it. Mrs Chester thought he was too young to be dying his hair, it didn't really matter though.

Panting for breath, Zoe sat down on a free chair.

'Can we have presents now?' she asked.

Her mum nodded and went to fetch them. When she reappeared, she was carrying a beautifully wrapped pile of gifts. She placed it at Zoe's feet.

'I'm sorry it's not much,' she said.

Zoe's excitement got the better of her. She tore into the paper to find a whole host of toys within. Teddy bears, dolls, cars, glitter paints - all brand new.

'Wow,' Zoe gasped, sliding onto the floor to play with her new toys. Her friends watched her with eager eyes, all content to let her do exactly as she wanted. It was her birthday after all.

There was a knock at the door. Zoe's mum pressed a finger to her lips. Normally Zoe hated this game. Today it couldn't spoil her fun though, so she mimicked her mum, pressing a finger to her lips. The other children did the same. No one made a sound.

The knocking continued for a few minutes. Zoe's mum lingered by the door, waiting for the unwanted visitor to leave. Silence fell. Josh blew a raspberry and Zoe burst into a fit of giggles. Zoe's mum slowly lowered the finger from her lips, a frown tugging at her eyebrows.

'How about we blow out the candles on your cake?' she suggested.

Zoe leapt up, scattering toys and paper across the floor. She couldn't wait for the cake, her stomach growled with anticipation. Her mum placed eight candles in the middle of the cake, eight candles for eight years of age. She lit them with a match.

'Make a wish,' her mum said.

Zoe grinned, she wished with all her heart and blew.

When she opened her eyes the single stump of a candle smoked in the middle of the cake - if it could be called such a thing. Tinned pudding was as close as they could get. It leaned to one side on the cracked plate it was perched upon. Under the smell from the candle it smelt sweet, not in a good way. Zoe slid back to the floor on her own. She crossed her legs and picked at her dirty fingernails. The tattered doll lay abandoned in a heap of brown paper.

Her mum ducked under the loose wires dangling from the ceiling and came to sit with her on the bare floor. The banging at the door was back again. Her mum's eyes darted to the sheet hanging over the windows, the pen she had tried to write on it with hadn't come out very well. The sunlight made it vanish almost completely. Shadows darted across it. One paused, sticking their nose up in the air, it slapped a hand against the window before stumbling away, snarling like some kind of animal.

Careful not to make any noise, Mrs Chester picked up the chair she had placed for Zoe and carried it back to the door where she wedged it back into the barricade.

When the banging stopped, her mum took hold of her hand.

'What did you wish for?' she asked.

'I wished that things were back the way they were,' Zoe mumbled. She wanted a real cake with frosting, real toys that were clean and unbroken, real friends who could laugh and dance with her.

Her fingers found the doll and entwined themselves in its grubby hair. When she looked back at her mum, there were tears rolling down her cheeks. Zoe fixed her eyes back on the floor, the feeling of guilt forced a lump into her throat. She didn’t want her mum to cry. It wasn’t her fault.

'I'm sorry,' her mum whispered.

Zoe took a deep breath and smiled. She squeezed her mum's hand.

'Thank you for my present mummy, she's really pretty,' Zoe attempted to rub some of the grime off the doll with her sleeve. 

It just made her mum sob harder. It made the banging on the door start again. Zoe hated the noise. Sometimes it would go on all night and they wouldn’t get any sleep at all. Every time it happened it meant they had to be completely silent, otherwise they'd get inside and they weren't very nice, they weren't her friends anymore.

She couldn’t remember what they looked like anymore, it didn’t matter how hard she tried. Josh didn’t really have blue hair, but he always used to say how he was going to dye it blue one day. Zoe couldn’t remember what his hair was really like, so she decided it was blue, he would have liked that a lot. 

She wished that she could go outside and play with them again, she wasn’t allowed though. Her mum said they were sick now and they couldn’t see them. If they got inside, then they would make them sick too. 

Zoe didn't want to be sick, so she sat quietly and played with her doll. No matter how hard she tried to conjure up her dream again, the thudding on the door kept drowning it out.